I’ve spent most of my life being kind of unsure about why I should vote.

To the readers of this publication, that might seem unusual, or absurd, or irresponsible.

But I’m fairly normal. I’m like most New Zealanders. I’m not a very politically knowledgeable person. I’m not naturally inclined to pay attention to politics. It looks like people criticising each other most of the time, and talking in convoluted ways about things I don’t really understand the rest of the time.

When you don’t really understand politics, your ideas about voting tend to centre around two simplistic and inaccurate beliefs:

1. You vote for the person or party that you want to be in charge.

2. If it appears fait accompli that a particular party or PM candidate is going to win, then the point of voting is greatly diminished, because your one little vote doesn’t really make any difference.

Because of this, I didn’t vote much.

Then somebody explained it to me.

And I thought ‘why has nobody explained it before’?

Our campaigns to get people to vote are depressingly benign. The current campaign message is ‘vote because you have the right to’.

That campaign doesn’t even begin to explain why you should care about exercising that right.

It doesn’t address those beliefs that people have about voting, that make them unlikely to vote.

I can’t understand how it has any chance of changing peoples’ behaviour.

I can’t understand why we’re not explaining it like I had it explained to me.

It’s pretty simple:

We have this special system in our country where somebody gets to be the leader, but they get guided by a whole bunch of other people to do the right thing.

Whoever ends up the leader of our country for the next three years is going to have a group of people around them who we vote in. People who stand up for what we believe in.

Our special system means that our leader has to listen to these people. But only if we vote them in.

When you vote in New Zealand, you are not voting for the leader. You are voting for the people that will constantly remind that leader about what’s important.

If you think that our leader needs to be reminded about environmental issues and kept from making environmental blunders, then vote for the party that you believe cares most about the environment.

If you think our leader needs to be reminded about economic growth, and kept from making economic blunders, then vote for the party that you believe cares most about the economy.

If you think our leader needs to be reminded about Maori issues and kept from ignoring Maori issues, then vote for the party that you believe cares most about Maori people.

If we don’t vote them in, then there isn’t anyone keeping our leader honest. Our leader will have free reign to do whatever they please.

So whatever we do, we should never not vote because we don’t think our favourite party has any hope of winning the election.

We should vote because we want our leader to have to listen to what we think is important.

We don’t need to give those other parties many votes for them to stand up for what we believe in.

But if we don’t give them any votes, then nothing we believe in will be stood up for.

58 responses to this post

Thanks James, this is a good way to explain it and I agree that it is foolish not to vote. However, our system is sorely lacking in the checks and balances which should ensure that the leadership takes note of the populace. You only need look at the public health and disability amendment act 2013 to see that.http://www.legislation.govt.nz/act/public/2013/0022/latest/whole.html

This bill removes a specific legal right from New Zealanders

Tariana Turia still believes that she voted against this bill, which as Minister for Disability issues, you'd expect. But the reality is that because it was put through under urgency and as part of the budget, and the Maori party is required to vote with the Nats for confidence and supply, her vote wasn't recorded as she wanted.

It is really important to vote, in order to obtain as much as possible in the way of checks on the abuse of power, but we may also need to build more checks and balances into our system. For that we need a government which truly represents its people, which requires a high voter turn out.

Happy at the present point in time to languish in the realm of the foolish, Angela.

So far, neither Labour nor the Greens have stated specifically that they will make repealing that shitty piece of legislation a priority....believe me I have scoured both parties' Policy statements,

AND spent a considerable amount of time on the phone with each's head office asking more or less..."what's the story ?"

So far I have a message via Mojo that they will aim to repeal the PHDAct(2)...I replied that I was looking forward to actually reading that in their policy statement.

Methinks there is a little bet hedging going on here.

Jesus wept....these politicians a wriggly arsed bunch.

I apologise for banging on about this one particular issue....but it really does provide us all with a benchmark when it comes to deciding on who to vote for, or if one votes at all.

This issue has been meandering its way through nearly fourteen years of discussion, mediation, tribunal and court hearings, consultation and submissions and yet more discussion.

Culminating in the shitty broadside from the Nats and their supporters...and the predictable howls of protest from the opposition benches.

Yet Labour could have addressed the discrimination before the issue was heard at the Human Rights Review Tribunal in 2008.

It didn't.

Why not?

And on an issue that even some deeply blue National supporters found repugnant, one would have thought that making clear and unambiguous policy statements on this issue would have made sound political sense for both Labour and the Greens.

More crudely If JK is PM he can safely ignore any party that has less than 6-7% of the vote and he will because he doesn't need them at all. If those parties had 12% then he would need them and he would suck up to them and do deals to get their vote for the things he wants.

Essentially your minority voice will only be heard if JK thinks he needs the vote from the minority party that most represents your voice.

I've always voted for a slightly different reason.In a democracy most people have two times in their life when they can influence the democracy.

The first is when they vote - yes the influence is small but it's the only influence you have unless you want to enter the murky waters of politics yourself.

The second is when you are on jury duty - that is the time when you actually apply the laws that the government passes and on a jury you can influence whether those laws are being applied correctly.

In a democracy most people have two times in their life when they can influence the democracy.

I've always encouraged my lad to get involved and have his say. He's organised a couple of large letter-writing and signing campaigns on various conservation issues, and he and his mates like to claim partial credit for the abandonment of the Fiordland monorail project. Who knows if this is the case, but at least they made their voices heard and who knows, perhaps the influx of teenage indignation did have some influence on Nick Smith. Overall I agree with you, and with the idea that we should cherish the right to vote.

Quite a bit of talk here about getting rid of JK...I'm with y'all there...Off with his head!

BUT...a pity that the precious vote is being used AGAINST something or someone....rather than FOR....as it ought to be.

Please...who do I vote for?

I have MY bottom line policy issue....

I will vote for the party that states unequivocally that it WILL repeal the PHDAct(2) ammendment AND reveal the redacted sections of the Regulatory Impact Statement. Within the first month of claiming a majority.

Tempus is fugiting, and I have not yet seen ANY concrete policy statement on this.

I would be stupid not to recognise that there will be one of two outcomes when you all go and do your thing in September.

The Nats will get back in. And may God have mercy on our souls.

There will be a tentative Labour/Green coalition.....with other minor parties on the periphery.

The latter outcome demands that there is a clear mandate....which could very well be undermined by He Who Must Not Be Identified By His Country Of Origin and His Kiwi Friends.

I will vote for the party that states unequivocally that it WILL repeal the PHDAct(2) ammendment AND reveal the redacted sections of the Regulatory Impact Statement. Within the first month of claiming a majority.

Which will never happen, and frankly I don't think it should -- legislative stunts under urgency generally aren't a great idea: look at National Standards. So you've basically set an unrealistic standard for earning your vote -- which is your right, but I don't see it does you any material good.

It always amuses me when those of us who don't vote are accused of being "apathetic", "lazy" or "foolish".

In many cases it is a well considered stance...if you like...a political statement.

Whereas I would choose to spoil my ballot paper if I wished to demonstrate my disgust at the lack of decent choices, which at least has a chance of being recognised as a political statement. I don't think failing to vote has much chance of being seen as a political statement. It means that you choose not to do the little that you can. It is your choice., but it is a hard won right that you are setting aside.

They've both said they want to fix this problem. They don't want to promise to do it ahead of other priorities and not knowing what strength they will have in a new governing situation. You've actually got honest answers instead of promises which might not be able to be kept. However you are right about the lack of information on this in written policy.

Good point - the opposition do shape policy during the term of a government. Same with all the community organisations, corporate lobbyists, and assorted riff-raff. We deserve better riff-raff! Vote frankenfurter.

At the handover of the petition last month both Ruth Dyson and the Greens committed to repealing the Act. Like Russell, I think rushed law changes are bad - much of the bad law in this current government, like National Standards, goes back to the marathon law changes the incoming government did in December 2008. I would prefer a select committee process that let people have input and let the politicians consider the issues properly.

I know you are not voting from a moral position but when I hear about non voting women I just feel so sad for those suffragists who worked so hard for so many years to win the right to vote.

Are you registered in King Country? I used to be on a school board of trustees with the Labour candidate there Penny Gaylor. I would vote for her.

Good point – the opposition do shape policy during the term of a government.

I tend to think Auckland Central benefits from being competitive. For the last three years, it's effectively had two very good MPs: Nikki Kaye and Jacinda Ardern. Green voters could make a real impact with their electorate votes this year though. Watch that space.